Modern Day
by Dwimorberg
Summary: The well never worked to transport anyone to and fro again, but Inuyasha is immortal. I do not own Rumiko Takahashi's characters; cover art is owned by NoTickleElmo on DeviantArt.
1. Animal Magnetism

**_Disclaimer: Please note that I claim no rights to Inuyasha. This is purely for fun. I am making no profits from this story._**

Kagome walked home, like she did every day. _One foot in front of the other,_ just as she'd reminded herself to do since the beginning. Unlike usual, Kagome was walking this path about fifteen minutes later than she would have had she not needed bagels, butter, rice, and nori. The blue-tainted-white plastic bag slung from her wrist as she kept her hands in her coat pockets served as explanation for her lateness to any neighbours noticing the difference.

She lived alone in a third-floor apartment in Japan. She had been careful to choose where she lived - to make it close to where she would emerge from the well each time she used it in feudal Japan. That reasoning escaped her usually, because she didn't like to think about it. She wanted it to be easy for him to find her, should he be alive and come looking. She'd carved the year that came and went two cycles past deep into a tumbled stone with a file and given it to him five years ago. Five years it had been since his voice had last touched her ears. Five years since he had kissed her in the well for that last time.

He'd promised to come. He promised he would start searching exactly five hundred years into the future, like the stone said. He'd promised it with such a low, pained tone.

She knew why. She knew that, if he were to be alive, he would be seven hundred years old - if he managed to merge into modern day society and escape dangers for that long. The next five hundred years would be wrenching for him, if he decided to wait for her, and not mate to someone else. The next five hundred years for him would be… probably as odd as the last five had been for her. She knew that time was next to nothing for the immortal - Sesshomaru had been five hundred around the time she'd spent in the feudal era.

She sighed and unlocked her door, pushing him out of her mind. Stepping into the warmth of her apartment, she pulled off her coat, hanging it on the hooks that hung on the wall beside the door. She carefully put her things away in the kitchen, ate a snack of peanuts and chocolate-chips, and spent the next few hours before the usual winter dusk at 6:30 on her computer, talking to Yuka and Eri over email and researching ferrets, which someone had said something about while walking past her desk today at work. After the sun set, she said good night and called Mama to chat while eating a chicken salad dinner. When the phone call ended, she showered, blew-dry her hair, and went to sleep.

Tuesday was almost exactly the same as Monday. Her alarm sounded at 6:45 AM, and she spent five minutes toasting and buttering two blueberry bagels for breakfast while packing sushi rolls for lunch. At 6:50, she ate breakfast quickly, and at 7, she softly padded barefoot to the bathroom and applied a little bit of eyeliner to the corners of her bottom eyelids, a little bit of concealer to even out her skin tone, and some black mascara to lengthen her eyelashes. Satisfied with her appearance, she dressed in the usual black jeans, white company blouse (tucked in, of course) and black flats with a small buckle on the front of each. She spritzed perfume over her blouse once (and only once) before shutting all the lights in the house off and donning her coat, purse, and lunch, and walking briskly out the front door of her apartment a minute early, at 7:09.

Kagome knew she was giving prime examples of obsessive-compulsive behavior, but this was a comfortable way of living for her. The obsession she had with doing things on schedule had come just a few months after she'd returned home from the feudal era for the last time. It had upset Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi that she'd become so nervous about time escaping her grasp, so Kagome left out two hours after school in her schedule to be filled by chattering, eating fast food, and laughing.

The time with her friends had been a sort of therapy that she could find nowhere else. It was comfort to talk to Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi. They all knew that Kagome had taken a jump start in her career, and had chosen to stay close to home and not go to college, but continue working as a secretary. She worked in an office for an electronics company, and had for the last three years. Only when she'd left the Shrine had she picked up the job full-time. It served as good income and pleasant way to affect others. She could talk to someone that was having a bad day on the phone cheerily for a few minutes and know that she'd lifted their mood, which made her feel excellent.

It was therefore a completely normal trip to work, a completely normal work day, and a completely normal afternoon as she walked home. It began snowing lightly when she turned onto her street and she looked up at the trees around her, admiring the beauty they held for once. It seemed to her as though she never really appreciated the beauty of things anymore.

It was four forty when she got home, like it was every day. She repeated Monday afternoon until she realized she wanted a cheeseburger more than she wanted to stay in, and more than she wanted anything that she currently had in stock.

She slipped warmer boots on and donned her coat to walk to the nearest fast food restaurant. She got the bigger dinner this time instead of scrimping and walked home with a surprisingly little amount of anxiety. She'd managed to block 98% of the memories of being around Tokyo with him, and this particular trip, like most to and from work, was devoid of thoughts of him.

_Wednesday._

_Thursday_.

… Friday.

Kagome had been forced to bring her backpack to work in order to bring a change of clothes appropriate for the weather. She tried not to let it bother her too much, but by the time she came home and slipped her feet out of her weatherproof boots, she was in a stressful mood. It made her even more stressed that she was in a stressful mood, because this was when she started letting memories come through.

She waited until 8:30 PM to pour herself a glass of bright pink alcohol called "Kinky." She didn't admire the name, but it tasted like mango and passion fruit, and she needed it like she needed it every Friday evening, to wash away the stresses of the week and pretend she never had to leave the sanctuary that was her apartment again.

Just like she needed to watch this soap opera and forget about how empty her life was. How empty her heart was.

Around eleven, Kagome went to take a shower, and although the alcohol had lulled her into a half-asleep state, the task went without incident. Just as she changed into her pajamas and hung up her jewelry, there was a soft knock at the door.

She froze. It was far too late for this to be anything normal, like apartment complex management or family. Grabbing her mace off her dresser, she stalked to the door as quietly as she could. When she looked out the peephole, her stomach seemed to catch and she thought she might have left her insides behind her in time. A dark haired man stood at the door, either looking down or with closed eyes. He wore a black pull-over hoodie with no distinguishing insignia.

It couldn't be Inuyasha. Inuyasha had hanyou ears, Inuyasha was shorter than this man. But that _face_ looked so _familiar_ and so much like his. Perhaps he was a salesman, and he was looking down at pamphlets to hand out. _Yes, that would be it,_ Kagome decided. Though she smacked herself mentally for letting herself think his name, her organs seemed to return the where she was. She opened the door with a composed expression and set the mace on the table by the door.

As soon as she got her first real look at him, she knew. It knocked the wind out of her to see him standing there. He raised his eyes to hers and the sweet, amber-gold went right through her. She swore her legs would give out, and she was so _heavy_ from the alcohol. Upon meeting her eyes, the man raised his right hand and seemed to grab something around his forehead. He pushed his hand back, and the black hair came with it. The wig fell onto the ground, leaving two white dog ears exposed. His silvery hanyou hair had been chopped short, likely to help hide it. The black jeans and black shoes he wore almost looked out of place, but he seemed to fit into them as well as he'd fit into his red - his red -

Kagome's eyes tore at his neckline. They found the purple beads in an instant.

"Finally," he said softly. He cracked a smile. "I'm two years late, but I found you." Inuyasha held out the carven-stone she had given him five hundred - or five? - years ago. The smile faded from his face as he watched her.

Kagome stared at him for a moment before she had to support herself with the doorframe. The alcohol's effect seemed to be getting heavier and she closed her eyes for one exhausted moment.

"You've been drinking," he said. He reached a hand out - a hand with trimmed claws - to grab her before she fell. "Please - can I touch you - ?"

"_Inuyasha_," she gasped. She started to collapse, but the hanyou dropped whatever it was he was holding - Kagome hadn't seen, only heard - and caught her. Immediately looking around to the balcony to make sure no one had just seen what happened, he picked her up bridal-style, as he had so many times before, and carried her to the couch. Laying her down, he moved swiftly and gathered the things he'd left out on the doorstep before locking the door and returning to her side.

"I don't have to stay if you don't want me here, Kagome. Don't let me make you uncomfortable. I've been tracing your scent since this afternoon, when I finally found it on the train, but it was two days old and it got too faint in some places - I thought -"

Kagome opened exhausted eyes and her expression silenced him. "I thought you had gone away," she said before she closed her eyes and fell into an unwilling sleep before him. After about a minute, he decided that her bed would be where he wanted her to wake up. He scooped her up again and revelled for the first time in_ five hundred long, agonized years_ in her soft, slightly cold skin. He set her down on the right side of the bed and pulled her blankets over her before he realized that this bed, a different one than he remembered, was big enough for both of them. Kagome had _a lot_ of blankets, as though she had a hard time keeping warm by herself.

His heart panged. He automatically wished that he'd showed up when he was supposed to, so that she wouldn't have spent these last two years almost completely alone.

Because this apartment had not seen another soul in quite a long time, that he knew by scent.

He walked back to the living room and unzipped the pet carrier he had with him. Nothing emerged, but a soft mewl ensued. He reached into a backpack and pulled out his old clothing, like he'd planned. He unwrapped Tessaiga, setting it on her kitchen counter as he changed. He wasn't self-conscious in the slightest; he knew she wouldn't be waking any time soon.

He tied his obi before walking silently - barefoot - through the tiny living room and into her bedroom. Pulling back her blankets, he climbed into bed with her and wrapped a warm arm around her waist. He thought he would explode from the overwhelming swelling in his chest, the happiness that he was finally _here, with her, once more, breathing her scent_ that he'd been so afraid he wouldn't be able to remember.

Kagome didn't move in the slightest.


	2. Sweet Dreams

_Sweet dreams are made of this,_

_Who am I to disagree?_

_I travel the world and the seven seas,_

_Everybody's looking for something._

_- The Eurythmics  
_

* * *

When Kagome woke, she was warm for once. She could feel the sunlight on the blankets that covered her. She could feel arms around her.

… Arms around her.

She threw herself into a sitting position and looked down at the spot next to her, wondering what the hell she'd done under the influence of alcohol. She recalled nothing of the night before - and squeaked when she saw Inuyasha. Inuyasha blinked rapidly to disperse sleep, looking up at her. As he did it, she remembered him with black hair - she remembered him taking it off, standing at her doorstep - she remembered his black hoodie - which was now replaced by clothes she knew better than anything else.

Inuyasha lay in her bed, looking up at her with beautiful golden eyes. His bangs had been left untouched, while the rest of his hair was now clipped so that it only draped to his shoulders. His face was thinner, and he bore a little bit more resemblance to Sesshomaru now.

Sesshomaru. Rin. Mortal Rin.

Memories of her friends rushed back to her. Sango and Miroku were gone, and Rin… She wondered what had taken place after she'd left.

A mewl came from beside her bed, and she looked down to find Kirara, whose eyes were trained on Kagome. Kagome smiled, but an abrupt thought of Sango being happy to see her, as well, hit her. She sobbed. Kirara jumped up on the bed, mewling again, crawling into Kagome's lap. Inuyasha sat up, gently grabbing her and pulling her closer to him.

"They were happy, Kagome. They missed you, but they were happy. I last saw Shippo about two hundred years ago in Thailand," he tried to console her, rubbing her arm gently through her sleeve.

"You've been to Thailand?" she asked reflexively.

The loneliness she had endured until now had made Kagome tough. She knew this would happen if Inuyasha were to seek her out like he'd said he would. The pain from wishing she could have seen them again remained, but the habitual expectation of seeing them when she saw Inuyasha faded into nothing. She was nothing if not realistic. She pet Kirara gently, scratching her ever so slightly behind delicate little ears. She'd missed Inuyasha's response if he'd made one, too lost in the emotions coursing through her.

"Inuyasha?" Kagome inquired after a few minutes of silence.

"Yes?"

Kagome couldn't get over how mature his tone of voice had become, and how his speech had improved. "What did we do last night?" She sounded nervous, even to herself. She didn't want him to think that it was _normal_ for her to wake up next to someone, wondering what she'd done the night before, when it was the very opposite. She woke up next to no one, and remembered everything that had happened the night before.

"You fell asleep. I think my appearance was a little much for you…" he smiled grimly.

Kagome's eyes widened at the idea that she'd actually collapsed. Her cheeks went a little bit rosy with embarrassment.

"I drink every Friday night… I do the same thing every week, so that I don't have time to think. I work… on a schedule." She was thankful that he'd come on a Friday, so that she'd have the weekend to spend talking to him. The idea that he was here to stay was too good, so she didn't allow herself to consider it a possibility yet. It was all too likely that he'd just come to tell her to stop waiting for him.

"Have you been waiting for me?" He asked softly, as though in tune to her thoughts. She didn't dare look at him, so she stared at her fingers, entwined in Kirara's fur.

"I… did not expect you to come. But I guess you could say I have been waiting for you. I thought… because you didn't come after I'd graduated high school, that you had died. It was too much for me to handle."

Inuyasha reached up to gently tilt her chin his direction. His ears quirked to each side at different times, and then both flicked forward at the same time, focusing on her breathing, and she knew it.

"I've been looking. I spent some time in England… I lost track of where the well was. I was away for a good hundred years. When I came back, it was completely different… I've been with Sesshomaru in England. The culture there is older. I've been training, reading… learning."

Kagome's face went from worried to oddly, slightly surprised… And more worried.

"What's bothering you, Kagome?"

Her eyebrows pulled tighter before she responded. "Have you been with anyone else?" she whispered.

Inuyasha gripped her hand. "No… No one else is you. I was made for you. I've been to every continent, though. I was working on going to every country when I came back. I was in the western regions of Japan… I made the mistake of not making any sort of note of where the well was on any map. I'd been away for about a century and a half. This is just a sprawling metropolis now. I had no idea.

"Have - have you been with anyone? You should be… twenty-two now, it's been five years since you last saw me."

Kagome's face was relaxed now. "Nope," she said calmly. "I've been keeping busy, busy, busy."

Inuyasha's eyebrows betrayed his complete confusion for a moment before he asked. "Is that why your scent leads to the office building?" he asked finally.

Kagome nodded. She looked down at him for a moment before she'd understood what he'd said earlier, about having saved himself for her. Her eyebrows pulled together again.

"You mean - you plan to stay with me?" she asked incredulously.

"I thought we could stay with each other," he smiled slightly. "Sesshomaru has changed. So has Rin, she'll be happy to see you again, they've been attacking that _pocket telephone_ with their radio signals once a week for the last two years -" he stopped once he comprehended her hugely confused expression.

"Rin is - alive?"

"It is only something mates can share… If Sesshomaru were to die, Rin would die within hours of his passing."

"_You_ can do that - ?"

His expression became guilty for a moment. This wasn't how he wanted to tell her.

"If - if I were to let the demon take over… I haven't allowed that in more than two hundred years. It would be dangerous. I don't know if I can trust myself, Sesshomaru is better balanced, he's learned how to control it almost precisely."

Kagome stared at him in his ability to talk about it so openly. She looked down at herself and flushed, wondering if he'd thought about _this_ when he thought about _that_, like _she_ had, all of those broken, fragmented fantasies -

She flinched away. This was much, much too fast. She'd only woken up fifteen minutes before.

Fifteen _minutes_.

Kagome jerked around and looked at the clock on her bedside table. She'd slept until nine. That was two hours over the usual allowance of time. But she looked back at him, in all of his perfection, and she felt it again. Unwanted heat, betraying her.

"It… seems that you still want me, the same way I want you," he said softly.

She threw her arm over her stomach and she swallowed hard. "You can smell it?" she asked bluntly.

"Yes," he said in an even softer tone. He sat up finally, sweeping some of her hair behind her shoulder and gently kissing her jawbone. "We do not need to rush. Take time. And if you want me gone, I stay away," he said gently against her ear. He smiled a little bit and pulled away. "I'll make breakfast," he announced, swiftly, yet silently and elegantly swinging out of bed.

Kagome was left breathless from the touch of his lips, and she knew that he knew that it had made the heat increase. She'd had the momentary urge to expose her neck to him. He was just about to leave her bedroom, and she could see that he was headed towards the kitchen. "Don't _ever_ leave me."

Inuyasha stopped and spun on the ball of his foot to face her. "I'm only making breakfast," he said with a smile. He got his desired reaction when Kagome put her face in her hands, smiling and giggling slightly.

However, when he turned, his expression was suddenly serious. "Don't ever leave _me _again," he said under his breath as he padded barefoot in the direction of the kitchen.

Kagome caught the silhouette of a sword on her kitchen counter. _The Tessaiga! I've missed it,_ she thought as she got up slowly to avoid a hangover rush of dizziness. _Successfully diverted,_ she thought to herself as she trotted - probably unwisely - towards the kitchen counter, which was stationed directly across the apartment from her bedroom door. All she had to do was cross the small living room.

Tucking her hair behind her ears and noting a chip in her purple nail polish, Kagome picked the Tessaiga up gently by the hilt and unsheathed it in a swift movement. It made a singing sound as it slid out of its lacquered wood saya. She admired it and touched the scuffed metal, running her fingers down its flat side, remembering what good times she'd had with the sword in company. Inuyasha had turned to look at her, staring at her as she admired it.

She looked up and made eye contact with him, feeling her heart thud just a little bit harder as she looked into his now-adult face. Slowly, he walked to the other side of the counter where she was and held his hand out for the hilt of his sword. He didn't ask for the saya. He was going to show her the Fang, which he himself had not seen in months. He smiled as she moved to hand it to him. Their fingers touched in the exchange of the sword, and the moment was likely the most intimate they had ever shared. Kagome's eyes widened and his expression became devious as he took the hilt from her hands gently. Moving so that he wouldn't hit anything, he surged his demonic energy toward the sword.

It flared like a match catching fire. There was the Fang, dwarfing Kagome's worn leather couch in comparison. She smiled graciously at the blade, happy that it and its master had made it back to her.

And then it hit her. She didn't have to pretend that he'd never existed to tear her apart with his absence anymore. She gasped and looked away from the sword, searching for Inuyasha's eyes with her own. As soon as they met, his carefully exuded control broke. He dropped the Tessaiga, which landed on the floor in a flare and a surprisingly loud clatter on the thin carpet. They broke towards each other, his hands for her waist, her hands for his head -

Their lips met. It was like the last five hundred - or five - years just melted away as Kagome tangled her fingers in his shortened hair. She suddenly decided that she liked his hair that way, and liked almost anything he could do at any time better than she liked what it had been like without him.

He was the only one in the tangle of body and emotion that was trying to control themselves, and he knew that she was out of her mind completely and would regret it if anything happened. She made it a lot harder when she wrapped her legs around him and pulled him down on top of her on the couch.

He felt himself against her warmth - the scents were driving him almost completely out of it. He found himself grinding his hips into her, gripping the back of the couch to remind himself that he mustn't allow it to go too far - _not far enough,_ said the youkai in his mind.

He nearly tore himself apart. The demon was surfacing.

It wouldn't allow him to break away. He was going to _force her -_

Disgust tore it apart and he regained control of himself, slowing the kissing against her lips until he could break away. He gasped and pulled himself away from her, breathing heavily and gripping the arm of the couch behind him. Kagome looked at him with such frightful worry that he almost trusted himself to get close to her again to comfort her.

"Kagome," he panted, gripping his stomach. She felt as though she'd been shocked as she heard her name escape his lips. "Think about what you're doing next time, please?" he looked away towards the curtained window in the back of the room.

She knew she'd screwed up. "I'm… I'm sorry, I…" her face flushed with embarrassment and she got up and went to her bathroom, closing the door quietly behind her.

He could hear her rustling around in the closet connected to the bathroom. She was getting dressed, hopefully in something more substantial than a skirt.

While she was gone, he got up and picked the Tessaiga up, sheathing it quickly and wrapping it back up. When he'd methodically tied the bag that he'd procured over the last three hundred years, he set it down next to his backpack on the kitchen counter and walked back to the couch to sit down and stare at the blank television screen. If he'd been younger, he would have been completely bewildered at what had happened. However, he was stoic and calm, trying to contemplate the idea that the future he'd so imagined with her was coming true.

After a few minutes, Kagome came back into the living room and sat down next to him.

"I was a fool," she whispered. When he looked to the side, he was happy to see her wearing black tights and a white shirt that hung from her slim frame in gentle drapes.

"I lost control and… I could have ended up forcing you into something you didn't want to do," he said softly.

"It wouldn't have been forced. I just would have been terrified afterwards."

His head snapped up and he looked at her face. "I won't leave you, Kagome. Never. I was made for you. The way we just fit together makes it that much more real…"

Kagome fixed her face forward and closed her eyes before she grasped for his hand. She was ready for everything. What she'd just felt was the informal introduction - there was no turning back. She smiled at the thought. Something in her spirit had changed. Something was _latched_ onto him now.

"Do you want to stay here?" she asked him.

"I want to be with you, wherever you are," he responded softly.

Kagome smiled as tears escaped from under her closed lids.

"Don't cry, honey, I'm sorry -" he began, wiping the tears away from her cheeks gently before she softly interrupted.

"That's not it, Inuyasha. I've been waiting for this. This is what I've been waiting on, each day, waking up and going to work, acting like everything was fine until you showed up yesterday," _I can't believe that was just last night._ Her chestnut-brown eyes opened to look into his before she came close to his face. She didn't know how he could _not_ be sure if he'd waited five hundred years to bind himself to her, but she had to make sure that he'd thought this through.

"You want this, then?" he asked, reaching a hand up and pulling on one fluffy ear. "For the rest of an immortal life?"

Kagome nodded as he asked. She continued to nod slowly for a few moments after he'd finished.

Inuyasha picked her up and brought her back to her bed. She looked at him as he crawled up next to her, putting a hand on the side of his neck. He shifted nervously before he spoke.

"Are you ready for sex?" he asked gently, avoiding her eyes. This was the shy hanyou that Kagome remembered.

Kagome blushed before she answered. She felt herself flush so deeply that she wanted to hide her face. Her tights suddenly felt too warm, and she uncrossed her legs.

"Maybe… with you," she whispered. She shut her eyes tightly and waited for his baited response.

"Kagome, I could hurt you… I know that the first time does hurt you in more ways than one. In order to claim… We must bite our mate's neck. Hard."

Kagome's mouth twitched slightly. She was surprised, because she _liked_ that idea. Even with the pain, she wanted his mouth against her neck, his teeth to slide against her skin, to be scarred by him in an act of possessiveness -

She was torn out of her thoughts by a little bit of laughter. "You're a sick girl, Kagome," he chuckled softly, looking away towards the curtained bedroom window.

Kagome's eyes narrowed suspiciously and she moved to cover herself up with her comforter. He didn't stop her, but he did place his hand over her lower stomach just after she'd done it.

"I like the smell," he said, his voice soft with hunger. At this, Kagome tensed, though thoroughly enjoying what he was doing.

That was when her stomach decided to make itself apparent. His soft laughter picked up again and he got up. "We don't need to be doing this right now. We're both hungry," he said, lightly stepping out of the room to go back to the kitchen. Kagome benignly wondered where he'd learned how to cook, and how. _Perhaps it was Kaede_, she thought, getting up to slide her moccasin slippers on and gently padding behind him.

He made eggs sunny side up, cooked nearly perfectly. When they had both finished eating, he sat back in the bar stool that had been pushed up next to her kitchen counter and looked around the apartment. He ruffled his hair with his hand before turning to Kagome, who sat, staring at her plate with a troubled expression. She wasn't used to the world outside going by around her anymore. Usually she moved with the world, and its time. Weekends had been her bane, with no engagements to keep her busy for eight hours, she'd resorted to cleaning and perfecting the way her apartment looked in between useless outings to the mall she hardly bought anything at.

"You seem so troubled," he noted, leaning back towards the counter to rest his elbow on it.

"I usually spend my Saturdays cleaning. I'm just not used to… hanging out. Having fun," she explained. Since she'd thrown herself at him, she'd become uncomfortable with herself.

"We can clean, if that's what you want to do. But this place is more immaculate than the house in England," he said, smiling and leaning forward to rest his forearms on the countertop.

"You've changed so much, Inuyasha. You've become so much more mature."

His ears quirked and he leaned further towards her. His expression became slightly confused.

Kagome smiled finally. It broke like dawn over him. He smiled with relief at her lightened expression, reaching out for her hand on the counter as he did so.

"I haven't heard you say 'keh!' the entire time you've been here," she giggled.

"Keh," he said softly, but with none of the attitude he used to say it with. He smiled broader when she did, gripping his hand. He could still smell anticipation on her. He wondered if she was hoping that something would happen, or whether she would stop him if he acted on what their bodies were saying. He could feel his erection on his pants, and hoped it wasn't showing - he didn't want it to make her uncomfortable, or make her feel pressured.

"Kagome, I love you."

She breathed deep, and the words seemed to seep into her soul and ease her. She could feel something important coming on. "I love you, Inuyasha," she whispered before leaning towards him to kiss his lips gently.

Her movement surprised him. But he'd said that _she loved him_, the woman he'd waited for, for such a long, drawn out time. Her scent of anticipation grew, and he had the sudden, overwhelming feeling that he did not want to wait any longer.

He'd spent all of his seven hundred years but for about a year and a half without her. Without this woman, his very oxygen felt less genuine. He stood up, keeping their lips locked together, and picked her up. He moved with demonic speed and set her under him on the bed, deepening the kiss by licking her lips slightly. She moaned into the kiss and granted him access to her mouth. They explored each other's mouths, he thinking about how lovely she smelled, she revelling in the sensation of part of him being inside of her.

It was the moaning that made him feel like his control was breaking down. Instinctively, he pulled her hands away from her, holding them down on the mattress above her head with one hand as he quickly grabbed for her breasts. She didn't stop him, but moaned further into the kiss, trying to wrap her own tongue around his -

His control was splintering. Purple youkai marks inherited from his father stood out against his paling face, his eyes going completely white as he held off the transformation between human and demon. He realized with a pang that he needed to ask her - ask her if she was sure about this - and he couldn't. Because the demon was not allowing the hanyou to pull away from the kiss.

The trimmed claws lengthened to their natural, sharpened points as he pinned her to the bed. Kagome desperately broke away for air, and he took his chance as he moved to her neck. "Are you sure this is what you want?" he asked heavily. His voice was distorted. Deeper than it had been minutes before.

Kagome found it enthralling, and she throbbed and twitched for him. "Yes," she whispered huskily. Her eyelids were beginning to grow heavy, and relaxation into the act took her body as his lips touched her neck.

She moaned. It was the only way to express the feeling his lips to her throat gave her. It was so intimate that she wanted to rush things further, and not wait for him to pull their clothes off.

Luckily, the connection they had told him what she wanted him to do, because he quickly pulled her shirt over her head and buried his face in between her breasts. He groaned, lifting her up to unhook her bra and push her against the mattress again when she was free of it. His lips and tongue played at her nipples until he pulled himself off of her to admire her body. He looked down at her, barren from the waist up, and his eyes went from being red with blue irises to gold again. He looked down at her face with such love in his gaze that she wondered how he had been coping, just less than twenty four hours ago. She wondered how he'd nursed those emotions over the last five hundred years.

He lowered himself again and nipped at her left nipple, calmly, but generously, before kissing downward. She didn't comprehend his intentions from the fog in her mind. After reaching her hip bone, he stood up and pulled the Robe of the Fire Rat off. It landed on the floor in a small heap. He slid his yukata off of his shoulders, where it fell to hang around his waist, held up by his obi. She gasped at the perfection of his bare chest. He quickly put his hips between her legs and bowed to kiss her stomach again. He lingered around her waistband for a minute, kissing, nipping and licking to make sure she would be comfortable when he slid her tights down her legs. Thankful that her slippers had fallen off, he gently hooked two fingers on each side of her waistband and pulled her tights and panties off.

The unbridled scent hit his nose, making his head spin. As he pulled them down, she tried to hide herself from him - pushing her legs together, though her expression was relaxed. He finally got them off, he pulled her legs apart gently with one hand while kissing her hips again.

The scent got impossibly stronger, and he couldn't wait any more. He wanted her to be comfortable, but he _had to taste her_. He had to hear her cry his name.

That she did, when his tongue gently slid in between her folds. She gasped at the sensation, trying to force her eyes open. It failed, and she simply allowed him to do what he needed to do._ What I need him to do_, she thought as his tongue hit the most sensitive part of her and her body jolted involuntarily.

"Yes," she heard him hiss, before finding it again with his tongue. He rubbed the nub a little bit before cupping his lips over it to suck - and when he began, she buckled.

"I've always dreamed of this," she gasped, wrapping her legs around his head and holding onto his hair for dear life. Her back arched and she gave a soft cry, pleasure shocking through her entire body. He hummed slightly, and she nearly thrashed under the sensation.

He slipped a finger into her, causing her to shiver. She could feel it building under his ministrations, sucking and gently pressing a finger upward inside of her. She couldn't stop herself from saying things that she never thought she'd say to him. Not in a million years. "Inuyasha, don't stop, please," she begged. A few moments later, she felt herself throb, and he picked up his pace. It felt even better than it had a moment ago - something she didn't know to be a possibility.

"Oh!" she gasped, tightening her grip on him. Despite her holding on with all of her tortured strength, he broke away for just a moment.

"Come for me, Kagome," he said, pushing his mouth back against her and humming deeply this time.

That did it.

She tried to hold him closer than he already was. He kept his pace as she came, crying his name and moaning with release. The sensations that wracked through her amazed her - she'd never imagined anything so good. It didn't stop her from completely relaxing, accepting the pleasure like he'd commanded her to.

He was pleased, feeling her muscles tighten around her and her little, match-head sized nub contract and relax under his lips. Sensations like no other seemed to wrack her body for what must have been at least thirty blissfully intense seconds before she came down. When she did, her hands went to cover her mouth and she shivered as he pulled his fingers out of her.

She expected the next few moments to be awkward, but they were the opposite. He pushed her up on her side and wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing the back of her shoulder. Tremors still wracked her little body, and it seemed to her that he understood that he could not go forward without giving her time to come down and become less sensitive. She could feel his erection, but the strange, new, mature Inuyasha did not push it. He only held her until she no longer shivered with aftershock.

"Do you want to keep going, honey?" he asked softly. Kagome revelled in the pleasure his voice gave her, nodding after a moment.

Inuyasha gently rose from the bed, gently pulling his obi loose and allowing his hakama and yukata to fall to the ground. Kagome's eyes lingered on his erection and she bit her lip as she watched him move closer. She hadn't been feeling terribly aroused until he went to touch her thighs, gently easing them apart as though they were gates. He looked at her with concern for a moment before he proceeded to put his hips between them.

"This is like human marriage, Kagome, but it can't be undone. Are you sure mine is the face you want to look at for the rest -"

Kagome's expression in her eyes stopped him from continuing his question as she nodded, biting her lip and looking down at his body again and again. She _knew_ she couldn't get enough of looking at this, she knew that the feelings she had now would dull anyone else's love or care in comparison. She'd turned Hojo down for years because of Inuyasha. She'd lived the past five years desperately in love with him, never considering anyone else - living in her little one bedroom apartment with the ultimate privacy, not bothering to go to coffee shops or bookstores to meet another man. Those ideas sounded as ridiculous now as they had then; obscene, because the only one that could ever hold her tether was more than human. It was almost as though he'd captured and captivated her from that first time she'd seen him, the immature hanyou stuck to Goshinboku by an arrow that her previous incarnate had put into his chest. He was half man, half beast.

And she wouldn't want it any other way. The fact that they were about to bind themselves together forever was breathtaking. Not just _she to him_, but _he to her_ as well.

Inuyasha saw the loving madness in her eyes and gently eased himself forward. He pressed his tip to her sex and his body tightened up. The youkai in him was rising up, telling him to _go_, go and claim her so that no others would touch her. Protect his heart with his bite, so that what happened with Kikyo would never happen again.

Fighting to keep himself calm, he slowly eased himself in, wincing as Kagome's little body tensed up and she covered her ample breasts with her thin little fingers. Feeling her barrier at the same time she felt it threatened, he went forward quickly, tearing through it. Tears of pain escaped the corners of her eyes, and he reached down to brush them away and calm her with his touch. He ran his hands down her shoulders and torso to ease her anxiety, while staying completely still inside of her, surprised at his ability to stay in his right mind. They stayed this way for a few minutes, before the walls in his mind finally broke down and he noticed her walls hugging him tightly. He'd blocked it for as long as he possibly could. The youkai rose its ugly head and turned his features again. He pulled away from her, and her expression was no longer painful.

"Go, Inuyasha," she said quietly. He was stunned by her voice, despite how often he'd heard it before.

He gripped her hips and pulled himself out, slowly pushing himself back in, fighting against her walls to get where he needed -

Instinct took over and Inuyasha thrust again, roughly. Kagome moaned, digging her short nails into his back. He growled in approval before resting his weight on his elbows, so as to not crush her.

Kagome's mind was gone. Each thrust made her want to cry out with pleasure, all of them seeming to touch something absolutely _wonderful_ inside of her. She exposed the side of her neck to him, inviting him to bite - because she wanted it. She wanted him to claim her. She knew his youkai was changing her as they continued, her senses heightening with each passing moment. Her vision and sense of smell became sharper, her body's tingling became more apparent.

He needed release. Release into _her_, into his mate, into _Kagome, his Kagome,_ who had somehow fallen in love with him, who somehow felt the same way he did. He gave in and thrust into her with abandon.

Kagome's gripped for any part of him that she could hold, writhing under his body. He felt her squeeze him, and let out a loud, guttural snarl before finally tumbling over the edge. Just as he did, he bit into the side of her neck, keeping his teeth there. His orgasm seemed to last a lifetime, and he couldn't _believe_ how intense it was. As he finished, the youkai in him faded. It was sated. He'd pleased her, and his mark on her neck was puckered, red and bleeding. As his fangs receded, he gently sucked on the wound to make the pain ease.


	3. Kiss of Dawn

_Author's note: This is another short one, only a few hundred words longer than the first chapter. It was written overnight during a storm, which seems fitting, because this is insert, as well as the next few, is the calm before the storm. In this chapter, I introduce two characters of my own creation: Ishi and Ume. I remind that I claim no ownership to Rumiko Takahashi's characters, but Ishi and Ume are mine._

* * *

Kagome's eyes fluttered open to find herself looking at Inuyasha, who had his arm wrapped possessively around her. The moment she woke, his eyes snapped open and his ears quirked. He had an alert expression on his face that she'd seen Sesshomaru wear during times of old, until the tension melted off like hot wax and he kissed her forehead.

It dawned on her that he was protecting her. It wasn't a gesture, it was just his nature - but she took it as though it had been a gesture. She smiled serenely, wondering how she'd gotten so lucky. She thought back at what she'd done to deserve this.

He raised his head so that he could see the right side of her neck. She jumped as he kissed his mark, exposing more of her skin to him instinctively. The claws on the hand of the arm around her raked her skin a little bit before he sat up, ears quirking again. It was as though he was trying to figure out what was going on outside - but to no avail. It seemed as though no bombs were going off, and no one was opening fire. Kagome giggled at the thought. Finally, his ears calmed down and he looked down at her with a smile.

"Did you want to get breakfast?" he asked gently. Kagome sat up, immediately realizing that had been a bad idea when her head spun. Instantly, he put his hand out to steady her, and the dizziness faded out of existence at his touch.

"That's just a side-effect, you're okay. Rin had it for a few days, too."

"How come it goes away when you touch me?" she asked in an honest tone.

Inuyasha's face broke into a genuine smile. "It does?" he asked smugly.

It struck Kagome that _that _part wasn't a normal side effect, and blushed a deep peach colour. Instead of assuring her that it was okay, Inuyasha looked at her with a wistful expression.

"It's so beautiful when you do that," he said softly, rising from the bed. He held out his hand to her to ward the dizziness away if it tried to return. She walked with lovely posture, except for keeping her neck held a little bit straighter than she normally would to avoid pulling on the scabs. When she went to brush her teeth after breakfast, she noticed that she was healing faster than usual. Inuyasha had wrapped his hand around her waist as she examined her throat.

"When that has healed, you should have sharpened senses, faster reflexes, and you should heal faster. We didn't know about those traits in the beginning. There may be more, or it could be unique to the person. Those are just things that Rin has exuded over the last few hundred years," he said, staring at her shower curtain with his cheek pressed against the back of her head.

Kagome's voice was grave when she spoke next. "And my aging?" she inquired softly.

"In tune to mine," he said, moving to press his lips to where his cheek had been and make eye contact with her through the mirror.

Kagome closed her eyes with relief and relaxed into his embrace. His arms were her home, and she knew that if they were here, she would always be fine. They protected her heart as well as they protected her body.

* * *

Sota's eyes had nearly popped out of his head when he saw him, standing there with a stoic expression on his face in the doorway in black jeans, the thick, inconspicuous black hoodie, and black leather boots. Mama had been surprised, but pulled the taller, fuller Inuyasha into her arms before stalking off to retrieve Sota. Sota asked about the black hair, reminding Inuyasha that he'd been without the itchy much-traveled companion on his head for the last thirty six hours.

He pushed the wig off like he had the night he'd appeared on Kagome's doorstep, and Sota had exclaimed louder at the choppy haircut. Kagome simply stood, smiling, watching the exchange, while wishing she could take her scarf off in front of her little brother.

"Is it really you, Inuyasha - ?" She was listening to him say when her eye caught her mother's and she looked at the laundry room. Mama smiled, following her lead.

Kagome closed the door quietly, knowing Inuyasha would be listening carefully. She smiled and hugged her mother again before speaking.

"You can, er, safely call him your son in law," she said quietly.

She expected the reaction she got. "You got married without - !?" But Kagome was already shaking her head. She removed her hands from her pockets, showing her bare fingers. She'd been careful to leave any rings at home today.

"It's sort of like that, but very private," she said, blushing. "There's no public ceremony," she started, pulling her scarf away from her neck on the right side. As soon as she unveiled it, Mama gasped, putting her hands over her mouth in a surprisingly dramatic reaction from such a calm little woman.

"He hurt you?" she asked brokenly.

"I don't really think of it that way, Mama," Kagome said consolingly, taking her hand away from her scarf and leaving the mark exposed. She smiled and hugged her mother, who bewilderedly reciprocated before Kagome whispered,

"He's coming."

The laundry room door slid open gently, bringing with it the sounds of Sota running to tell Jii-chan that Inuyasha had returned - that he'd sought out his sister after five hundred years.

"It's a ritual," he explained, his brows furrowed as he went to take Mama's hands, Kagome swiftly moving aside as he did so. "Please understand, Miss Higurashi, I would never hurt your daughter. She chose this, and if she had not, I would never have touched her."

Mama smiled, looking at the two of them as her eyes brimmed with tears. She pulled Inuyasha into another hug before wiping at her cheeks. "You're part of my family, Inuyasha, I've always known how much she loved you."

With that, Sota returned, grabbing Inuyasha around the arm and dragging him off to chatter until his ears fell off. The day was spent at the Shrine, mostly around the warm fire drinking various teas and eating different things. Kagome, who'd allowed her sweet tooth to get the better of her over the last half-decade, nibbled at cookies. It seemed that Inuyasha had finally grown tired of eating Ramen over the years, and for that, Kagome sighed with relief. It was a boring food that she usually excluded from her pantries.

* * *

The next few weeks were uneventful and chilly. Kagome would come home to her apartment to find Kirara rolling around on the floor in catnip. On the occasion that he'd stayed there, she would come home to find Inuyasha himself sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by parts of things. The first time she'd come home to find her laptop in a state of careful reconstruction, she'd shook her head and warned him about not deleting anything that had been saved on the hard drive. Inuyasha had smiled, happy that she trusted him not to actually break things like he would have a few centuries ago. He was grateful that she understood that he had changed over the last five centuries, and become a more responsible person, even if he was still fascinated by gadgets.

It was about a month after being claimed that he'd asked her about England. Kagome had worked the entire time, not knowing any other reality. Inuyasha had almost always walked her to work and saw her home again. He'd been visibly nervous on days that he didn't follow her, afraid to let his mate go out, unprotected. He explained that Sesshomaru had done the same with Rin for more than a decade when Kagome had rolled her eyes and finally tore herself away from his searching lips.

Some days she'd get home and collapse into bed, exhausted. Other days, she would let a little bit more skin show than usual, inviting him to bed with a devilish little smile that she never knew she'd possessed. Their second time had been so intense that she'd been completely unable to walk to work the next morning. She found that the mated bond between them had increased her senses and reflexes as well as increasing her response to his touch. She thoroughly enjoyed it, on cloud nine each time she was wrapped within ever-waiting arms. It only intensified when he touched her further, nuzzling places that became less and less nerve-wracking and more homely and inviting.

Weeks of nudging, carefully making sure that he didn't push too far, had finally made her understand that money was something that _all_ Lore creatures had a surplus of because of the extended time they had to procure it. Sesshomaru and Rin lived in a four bedroom house in London now, preferring the older culture of the English to the new and advanced culture of Japan.

It had been three months before she had actually given in to her realization and wrote her two week notice. She hadn't yet discovered the courage to turn it in, afraid to leave the sanctuary of the place she'd spent almost her entire life - aside from the time she'd spent in the feudal era, which had technically been here, too. Inuyasha had waited patiently, passing the time without complaint. He consoled her when she became nervous, assuring her that they _could_ stay in Japan for however long she wanted to stay. The urge to see Rin had gotten the best of her before long, but not before a soft, echoing knock sounded on her apartment door.

When she'd opened the door, she mirrored young man that greeted her with a surprised expression. He looked surprisingly like Inuyasha had looked all those years ago, but with a crescent moon on his forehead, obviously not bothering to hide it. He was wearing black pants with a red peacoat. He bit his lip before he spoke in formal Japanese.

"Excuse me, miss, are you - by chance - Lady Kagome?" he asked, pausing before he addressed her.

Kagome's eyebrows were probably going to disappear into her hairline. "I - I am," she said, confused beyond words. She was scratching her mind for another question - _why the hell_ was Inukimi's long-lost son on her doorstep? He couldn't be Rin's child, the moon wouldn't be there if he was, and he would have hanyou ears -

"Is - is Inuyasha here, with you? I've been sent by my mother -" he continued before Inuyasha appeared at the door.

"Ishi!" he said, smiling.

The boy called Ishi stared at him with surprise before the couple moved out of the way so that he could enter. Once in the apartment, Ishi put his hand up on his forehead as Inuyasha had done the night he'd showed up. Pulling back a sheen of black hair, he watched as Kagome stared at the young boy in front of her with a bewildered expression.

"Lady Kagome - excuse me," he began, holding out a clawed hand. His hair was silver-grey and his ears were a little bit longer than Inuyasha's, with one flopped over playfully. She wondered why it was different before she held her hand out to shake his.

"I did not introduce myself," he continued. "I am the son of Sesshomaru and Rin, Ishi. My mother sent me to find Inuyasha-sama when he turned his cell phone off two months ago," he explained, looking towards his uncle. Kagome blinked before looking at Inuyasha.

"Well, I told them what I was doing. It's not my fault," he said, defending himself like a younger Inuyasha would have done.

"How come - you never told me, they had a child?" Kagome looked so confused that it almost made Inuyasha want to laugh.

"Children," Inuyasha corrected, glaring at Ishi now. It wasn't as though either of them disliked the boy, he'd just turned up out of the blue.

"His sister's name is Ume," he stated. "I didn't tell you because I wanted you to meet them first. Rin is still fertile and taking the same medication that you are to prevent pregnancy. That means that I am most likely able to sire, because the human traits can be completely frozen by the demon traits, or in her case, the mated bond with a demon," He smiled, putting an arm around her waist. "It's a surprise for you."

Kagome's eyes flicked back and forth between the two hanyou as he spoke. When he finished, her face broke into a beautiful smile, but she showed no further affection with her nephew present.

_Nephew_, she thought to herself. _I'm an aunt._

She'd never even given second thought to the idea that he could sire children.

Ishi smiled and looked at his uncle. "When did you plan on coming home? We were all worried," he prodded.

* * *

That was when Kagome realized that she must move forward. The next day, she bought plane tickets after she'd turned in the two week notice that had been sitting in her kitchen for two whole months. She hoped her employers wouldn't be offended at the crumpled edges of the envelope.


	4. The Zoo

_Author's note: This is another short chapter, as this chapter and the subchapter after it were originally one. When the adventure itself picks up, the chapters will be about the length of chapter two._

_I appreciate your patience._

* * *

_Enjoy the Zoo,_

_And walk down 42nd Street._

_You will be excited, too,_

_And you will feel the heat._

_- The Scorpions_

The purr of the jet engines had lulled all three of them to sleep. Ishi had his face pressed against the business class window, breathing deeply. Kagome had fallen asleep with her head tilted towards Inuyasha, who'd allowed his head to droop towards his chest. Kagome had been admiring his human face for the first time in what felt like forever.

They had been careful to travel by plane only on nights of the new moon, so that their ears wouldn't cause speculation on airport security measures. Instead of fighting the system, both boys had carefully skirted it.

At 4:42 AM, the Airbus A320 began its descent from 28,000 feet - the plane's cruising altitude on this particular flight - to London Heathrow Airport. Ishi had woken up when his cell phone alarm vibrated at 4:45. They were scheduled to land at 5:00, so he woke the lovebirds five minutes later. Being the most responsible, he'd made sure everyone had parkas hanging over their forearms as they stepped out onto the stand, descending into the terminal. He and Inuyasha led Kagome through the airport with ease.

With their wigs - referred to with annoyance as "itchy head things" - in perfect place, looking incredibly like natural hair, the boys exited the first-floor bathroom just as the first rays of sunlight began to illuminate the grey clouds. With a large suitcase of Kagome's belongings embarrassing her, they left the airport in search of a taxi to take them to the nearest train station. Inuyasha did things methodically, as though he'd done them thousands of times before, speaking English with a perfect accent.

"If I had to move all of my clothes across the world, I'd be sporting a trunk at least as big as that one," Ishi said to Kagome in an English drawl in the back of the cab.

The train ride was barely half an hour, and after the boys had transformed into their more sturdy bodies, Inuyasha wrestled Kagome's suitcase from her grasp to tow it behind himself. They strode in perfect sync with one another down a chilly England street for about ten minutes before Inuyasha took an abrupt right into a very old suburb. He had to remind himself that Kagome had never seen England, and that she would walk through the older neighbourhood that Sesshomaru's house stood in with awe etched across her face, eyes wide, afraid to miss anything, was to be expected. The houses stood four stories high, squashed together on either side, with a brick wall enclosing a small back yard behind them. Kagome had been caught up in the new environment when Ishi had turned in front of Old Brick Number Forty Three.

The house number hung on the door in ornate black metal. The door was painted dark blue, which contrasted with the beige brick the house was made out of,. Looking at it with the moderately overcast sky hanging over it could give anyone the creeps. She had a hard time picturing Rin and Sesshomaru living here, despite how much of a creep Sesshomaru could be.

Inuyasha was looking at her face. It took him a moment, but he started chuckling. "It doesn't bite, you know," he said, watching Ishi unlock the door with an ornate key. It swung open silently to reveal a room so dark that Kagome couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. Ishi turned around and pressed his index finger to his lips with his eyes wide. Kagome nodded her understanding: be as quiet as possible.

Inuyasha pulled her suitcase into what turned out to be a narrow entrance hall and took her by the hand into the cool, dark space. With his superior strength, he picked the suitcase up by its side-handle and began climbing lacquered stairs that she hadn't noticed in the darkness. They cut right into the wall on the side of the room, while another staircase led down on the other side of the room, presumably to a basement. Neither had railing, she noted. She followed him, making sure her footfalls were muffled as she climbed. At the end of the flight, he glanced into the dark room that seemed to be a sitting room or living area before climbing the next. The staircases were separated by only a landing that leveled into the mystery room. He turned on the third floor landing long before she did, pausing to wait for her before he opened a dark door on the left side of the hallway. He turned and smiled as it swung open, stepping in to put her things down next to a large dresser as she entered behind him.

She froze, making it necessary for Inuyasha to gently nudge her out of the way so that he could close the door. Once it was closed, he took a deep breath.

"They're asleep," he said in a normal tone. Kagome turned around, tearing her eyes from the beautiful - but dusty - room in front of her, opening her mouth to question the volume of his voice - but he was pointing to a sutra on the door. "Soundproof. All the rooms with doors are. Hearing in this house is too acute to go without sutras."

Kagome looked around the room again, admiring its beauty. All of the furniture was redwood, and the blankets on the bed were navy blue - obviously a trend in this house - embroidered with felt. One side of the bed was completely untouched, but the other had very obviously been gotten out of by someone - albeit a long, long time ago. The walls looked to be the same colour as the bedspread, but she couldn't tell through the sheet of dust that settled on them.

"I haven't been here in fifty years. I started traveling to get away from the loneliness until I could come and find you. This room has seen a ridiculous amount of tears. I hated all the time I spent in it."

Kagome's face twitched as she looked at him. "You cried here?" she asked. The last time she'd seen him cry was when her previous incarnate had finally died.

"I missed you," he said softly. "I'd always missed you, but we completely ran out of fighting to do, and I had no distractions except for a black and white television," he motioned towards the oldest wood-paneled TV that Kagome had ever seen. "I miss you when I'm not touching you, even more now that we're so connected."

Kagome reached a hand out and placed it on his chest. She immediately noticed that an ache she hadn't noticed in her body eased after a few moments. She brought the same hand up to touch the bare skin of his neck, and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as she made contact.

"Do you feel that?" he asked softly. His voice was romantic, the kind of voice that could melt her into that bed no matter how many spiders had taken refuge in its sheets.

"The relief?" she responded to his question with another question.

"Yes," he said, his voice becoming huskier. He moved forward and wrapped his arms around her, pressing her against his chest and kissing the top of her head. She revelled in the relief she felt in it, relief from something that she didn't even know was there.

* * *

Sesshomaru woke, knowing his son was home. Rin was curled up, facing away from him like she usually did, hugging his mokomokosama to her chest. He sat up swiftly, ignoring the fact that he only wore sweats and a tee-shirt, and walked down to his brother's room.

The door was open, and the room was empty, but he smelled them in the house. Sesshomaru smirked, turning to head downstairs, to the basement kitchen - where he could find his brother at almost any time when he was in the house.

He opened the kitchen door, glad that he wasn't walking in on something private when he saw Kagome sitting on the counter, Inuyasha standing next to her, rummaging through the refrigerator. He remembered the years after claiming Rin - how every single thing she did could entice him to assert the fact that she was _his_, and _his alone_. He understood the way Inuyasha now stood, feigning casualness as he fought to keep his nature bridled. He supposed it would be easier on Inuyasha, with the nature only ruling over half of him.

"Our old refrigerator was avocado green," he was telling her. "Hideous, I know," he dropped the package of bratwurst he'd been holding when he saw Kagome's eyes widen upon seeing Sesshomaru.

Inuyasha turned around with a playful expression on his face as Sesshomaru spoke. "My brother, we've been worried," he said in his deep, stoic voice. Kagome's mouth dropped open. _His brother? Since when he Sesshomaru ever considered Inuyasha to be his brother?_

Sesshomaru walked to the edge of the dining table before speaking again. He wasted no time. "I'm sorry for all of those times I tried to kill you, Kagome. And even sorrier for all of those times I tried to kill him," he said, motioning to Inuyasha, who was now pulling a stainless steel pan out of the cabinet and looking at it with confusion before setting it on a surprisingly modern stove for such an old house.

Kagome stared, dumbfounded. She didn't know what to say, or how to address him. Inuyasha had told her that he'd been in a position of power over the western region of Japan, like his father before him, before the industrial revolution hit the country full force, driving them into hiding. How did you address a _king_ that was also your brother-in-law? She had a lot of catching up to do, because the last five hundred years of her seven hundred year old husband's life were almost a complete mystery to her. She was even more intrigued when she realized that the man she was looking at had been around for a millenium.

He smiled before turning away. "Rin will be pleased with your arrival. I'll inform her when she wakes. In the mean time," he laughed, looking at Inuyasha, "please don't break the furniture."

For the first time, Kagome heard Inuyasha's strangely mature voice say "keh!" before going to cook the bratwurst.

It took her a moment before she started laughing. The tension she'd had for the last few months, from being found by Inuyasha, mated to him within 24 hours, being sought by Sesshomaru and Rin's _child_, who was her _nephew_, _deciding to leave her desk job to move 11,000 miles from her homeland_ - and _then_ getting off an airplane for the first time to find herself in a completely different culture, _and then_ entering this musty old house with new appliances and antique furniture an hour later - that had nearly broken her down. Piled on top of it, she'd just heard the unemotional, aristocratic assassin that was Sesshomaru refer to Inuyasha - once his most sworn enemy - as his brother - _something he swore aloud that he would never do_ - it all broke, causing Kagome to laugh hysterically while sitting on the kitchen countertop, burying her face in her hands as she cracked up. What in the _hell_ had happened to everything she once knew?

At first, Inuyasha thought the laughter was cute, before he realized the she was literally having a nervous breakdown. Shutting the stove off and ignoring his hunger, he wrapped his arms around her as the hysterical laughter became tears at his melting touch. She started to choke her apology, but he interrupted her.

"No, I know. This has been incredibly dramatic for you. You were handling it too well to not break down," he said, cradling her head in the crook of his throat. He was surprised when, despite the tears and shaking, he felt her lips against his skin. He knew she needed him, and he wasn't about to deny her the thing that would make her feel better. He was startled, but pleased, as he felt her tear away the fabric of his shirt. Hoping Rin wouldn't decide to come and visit them just now, he picked her up, laying her across the table while tearing at her clothes.


	5. Subchapter: It Begins

A little girl with amber eyes and red hair looked up at Old Brick Number Forty Three. She stopped in her tracks, staring up at the house with her mouth agape. Her mother noted the absence of little footfalls, turning around to investigate whatever her daughter had gotten into _this time -_

She was staring at a house exactly like the ones that surrounded it, and exactly like the ones her grandfather was about to buy. The little girl, Christine, or more suitably known as Chrissy, continued to gape at the house as her mother tried to figure out what was so transfixing about it. Finding nothing, her mother snapped with her usual sour tone, "Chrissy! Let's go!"

The little girl looked back at her mother, but walked a few paces to touch the fence in front of this particular house. She pulled her hand away immediately; it gave her a static shock.

"Christine, _now_!" her mother chided, and the little girl started after her mother once more.

* * *

Sesshomaru's eyes went red with fury for the first time in over a century. He tore around, nails and fangs elongating as he became more formidable than he already was. He stalked to the fourth-story bedroom window that overlooked the street. He wondered _why on earth_ he'd just been nearly forced into a transformation that would have completely demolished this floor of the house as he looked at the barren street below. He heard blankets rustle, and he glanced back at Rin, whose head was raised from her pillow, eyes wide.

"Did you feel that?" she asked, sitting up.

"I did."

Rin threw herself out of bed. Sesshomaru didn't bother to ask her where she was going, or why she'd just run out of the room half-naked. He knew she'd gone to check on everyone - first being Ume, whose bedroom door was about ten feet down on the other side of the hallway. When the door slammed against the wall and Sesshomaru heard Ume snarl, he sighed with relief.


	6. Down

_Author's note: I have added another character of my own creation today, one that will remain nameless until she is formally met._

_Thank you for reading, and enjoy._

* * *

_I've been waiting,_

_A long time now._

_Now here's the answer,_

_You're all mine now._

_-Stone Temple Pilots_

* * *

Kagome shuddered at the air coming through the doorway. How did it even _get_ this cold? She'd known moving North meant cold, but she hadn't anticipated it to be _this_ bad. Inuyasha looked at her with worry, tensing in a strange position for a moment. He seemed to find it hard to stay where he was.

"You get used to it after a while, Kagome," he said in an odd tone, retreating from the porch and closing the door behind him. Today, he was wearing the first short-sleeved shirt she'd ever seen him wear; she was being driven up a wall by the way it hugged the muscles of his chest. She watched as his face became anguished and he turned and crossed his arms against the wall next to the door, resting his head on them, like he was dealing with something awful. It startled her; what had she done? She immediately became insecure that he regretted his choice to bind to her went through her head. They'd been here for two weeks, and he was becoming more distant by the day.

The idea that he regretted it made her want to gag. Was her intolerance to cold that bad, that she had made him regret being with someone so weak?

"What - what did I do?" she asked timidly.

Inuyasha took a deep breath, lifting his head off of his arms. "It's not what you _do_, Kagome, it's how I _feel_. Sesshomaru was right. This is hard," he said, putting his head back down.

The words went through her like bullets. She had the urge to double over and clutch her stomach as though she _had_ been shot.

"But - what do you feel? You can tell me anything, Inuyasha, you just have to find the words -"

Suddenly he was gripping the sides of her arms, looking down at her with torment. She didn't even know how he'd gotten where he was. She glanced behind his head to make sure they were in the same room, and to make sure that she hadn't just fallen through another fissure in time.

"Everything you do," - he winced - "or almost everything you do, makes me want to throw myself at you, and assert the fact that you are _mine_," he said, the torment in his voice growing. Kagome, however, was having a different reaction, and her anxiety eased. This meant more intimacy. Four months and three weeks it had been since he sank his teeth into her neck, and she _still_ didn't get nearly enough of him. Her body couldn't handle it all, or she would never let him leave the bedroom. She felt as though part of her spirit had been injected with some of the intensity of a demon, while her body remained soft and breakable.

His eyebrows furrowed as he looked at the lightened expression on her face. "You don't - you don't actually _want_ me to do that, do you?" he asked incredulously.

Kagome blushed, but pushed herself against him, satisfied at what she felt. She saw his control waver for just a moment, his face coming closer to hers.

"Why have you been holding back?" she asked softly.

His expression loosened further. "Because I don't want to make you uncomfortable… My instincts are to please you to no end, but make you as comfortable as possible. We need things in moderation," he said, his voice a husky almost-whisper.

She kissed his lips gently, and he froze himself up, not responding because of where they were: the laundry room at the very end of the entrance hall. Though not often visited, it was far from private. Kagome could hear Ume close the kitchen door with an annoyed snap - not entirely out of character for Ume - just before she brought the response to his "moderation" comment to her lips.

"There's too much moderation, Inuyasha," she whispered. "I've told you what I want to do."

He abruptly grabbed her waist and threw her over his right shoulder. At first, she was furious, almost snapping at him to put her _back on her feet_, but she knew that was a bad idea in a house full of extremely acute hearing. Instead, she simply crossed her arms and bounced with his gait as he walked with a determined pace up the staircases and threw her onto the new pillowtop mattress, covered with the same sheets and comforter as it had been when she'd first seen it. He turned and closed the door before crossing his arms and looking at her like she was a child that had done something that she _knew_ she wasn't allowed to do.

"It's too dangerous, Kagome. I've torn apart two different beds just _fantasizing_ about that. I've proven myself too irresponsible to even think about it, what the hell makes you think I can handle it actually happening without tearing you to pieces?" he sounded legitimately angry.

"That was _fifty years ago_, Inuyasha, you now have instinct to protect your mate -"

He was hovering over her, straddling her legs with no contact at all. His hair hung around his face in a silver curtain, the shortened ends falling about six inches short of her face. His eyes were red with blue irises, his face painted with purple scores across each cheek. Immediately, his lips went to her throat, causing her to expose more of herself to him. She sensed a ravaging coming on, and she was happy with it, as long as she could get him to let her -

"Don't say 'your mate' again," his deepened, demonic voice rumbled. "It will cause the same reaction. Now I have to…" he trailed off, running the claws on one hand across her jawbone and part of her neck. She tilted her head to the side, easily submitting to his fingers' command.. He wasn't in his right mind. Taking advantage of it, she rolled onto her stomach below him.

He growled, pulling her hair back and pushing himself against her bottom. Kagome was surprisingly unaffected by something that would normally turn her into a puddle; she loved this position. She allowed him to lose himself, pulling her clothes off of her, hardly hesitating to tear his own off. When they were both finally naked, Kagome pushed him back onto the bed. Of course, he didn't fight it. She was the one being that he _couldn't_ fight. He rested flat on his back, ready for whatever was about to happen.

He wasn't thinking. Kagome's smile was probably the most evil thing she'd ever worn.

As soon as he felt her lips on his hip bones, the demon reverted. He knew in his heart that he would hurt her if she continued. However, when he went to move his arms, he was only half dismayed when they did not obey. He was submitting.

He was submitting. He felt horrible. He was submitting. He was going to hurt her at the very least. He wouldn't allow himself to think anything else, when he felt cool breath on his tip, followed by a warm, wet tongue. He did his best to keep his hands where they were, so he gripped the sheets under him and balled them into fists. He hissed as he felt her lick gently. _She was actually doing it._ He groaned as she continued to test what she could do, wondering how he could possibly hold on if she started sucking.

He knew she would.

And when it started, the pleasure snapped him back to his senses.

"Ka - Kago-me, you have to stop. Please stop," he begged, struggling to hold onto the sheets. He knew this was when he'd hurt her.

The little witch hummed in response, and that was the end of holding onto the sheets. He gripped her head, pushing her down. His heart said that it would be over soon, but his brain was all too keen to keep this going. His body would follow his heart, though, and within thirty seconds, he'd begun squirming a little under her, groaning, thrusting into her hot little mouth. He was surprised, but so, _so_ grateful that she continued to suck as he came. If she was _swallowing_ -

As he finished, he almost completely fell asleep. When he finally regained conscious thinking, he found Kagome already dressed, though smelling like she'd done so completely selflessly. She'd ignored her needs on purpose. She was sitting on the chair across the room from the foot of the bed, right next to the TV cabinet, with her right leg crossed over the over and her arms crossed across her chest, a smug smile on her face. He looked around himself. There was no evidence of the act.

She'd swallowed. He got hard again involuntarily.

"Are you okay?" he pushed.

"You didn't hurt me," she consoled softly. "But what did you just think about?".

"You swallowed," he said hoarsely.

"I did," she said softly. "It tasted lovely."

He felt the wind get sucked out of him at that one. "Please, let me pleasure you," he said quietly. Her body was weeping for release. She needed it. He couldn't just let her go without, he loved her too much. He knew she wouldn't have done what she just did without loving him - just that fact made his chest swell warmly as he looked at her with a soft, caring expression.

Her smug demeanor wavered. "I didn't… intend on allowing you to," she said with little conviction.

"Come here," he told her. She complied, rising from her seat and dropping herself on the bed next to him on "her" side. He immediately tore her fluffy pajama pants off of her, her underwear going with them. His mouth was on her's before she had the ability to comprehend what he was doing.

* * *

A woman with red hair and amber eyes pulled her little gray horse up gently, looking at the horizon over the mountains. A vast storm was approaching, one that _could_ last for three days and three nights. If it did, it meant that the board was being set for a new transfer. A new soul would be arriving in the land of Other. A new person to guide and protect until they learned how to go back to wherever they came from. She wondered from what time period, and from what planet, they would come from. She averted her eyes from the storm to the grass below her horse's feet. As she did so, a white spot on her left cheek that almost blended perfectly with her pale skin glinted in the late afternoon sunlight. The grass was the colour it would be in Fall; beiges and greens and yellows creating a collage that rolled and flowed with the passing winds.

She decided that she would end her adventure here, and head back to her home in the forest at the bottom of the thick Sequoia tree. She gently pulled her little grey horse around in a circle, giving him a nudge on either of his sides with her flat boots. He started off happily, but the little woman on his back was lost deep in the realm of her own thoughts.

The storm climbed across the valley quickly, making it apparent that this _very_ well could be the storm she'd been waiting for. The next three days and three nights would tell.

* * *

The storm began at one in the morning, confirming the woman's suspicions. It wasn't concrete, but it was on its way to being concrete. She climbed stairs to the second floor of her little house at the bottom of the Great Tree to retrieve the white armor that hugged her frame and allowed no snagging or tearing. When asked, she would say that the material was the white boar's skin. Smoothing out the leathery material on the largest desk in the house, she squared her shoulders, softly laughing at the idea that she would be _employed_ again in three days. Then, grabbing a dagger from the hook on the wall, the little woman leapt from her second-story window, not wanting to explain to her horses where she was headed to.

* * *

Ume looked out the window, narrowing her eyes. Rain was falling when the temperatures were fit for snow. After a minute of glaring at the window, she turned and opened her bedroom door, stalking across the hallway to knock on her parent's door. Her black hair fluttered out behind her as she went, and she might have been beautiful, had she not worn such a sour expression on her face. It was Rin that opened it, looking just a little bit down at her daughter's eyes.

"It's raining. It should be snowing, but it's raining. The rain is freezing on the windows. Just thought you guys should know."

With that, Ume did a perfect, graceful 90 degree turn and walked back to her room, closing the door loudly behind her.

Rin turned to face Sesshomaru. "Do you have any idea why that would - ?"

"No, I don't," he said, softly interrupting her while setting his book on the nightstand. He looked at the window next to him, cloaked by a thick curtain.

"It probably doesn't affect us," she said quietly, trying to comfort herself. "There are plenty of Lore creatures in England. We're not the only ones, and we're the quietest…"

"Rin," he said. Her head snapped in response. "I've said it a million times. You worry about them all too much. You must let them do it on their own if they're in trouble. You can do nothing about it if they are."

Rin nodded, relaxing her shoulders before going to curl up at Sesshomaru's side. He kissed her forehead before moving to her lips. Deciding he wasn't happy with _just_ her lips on this cold night on which she was consumed with worry, he moved to her neck. Immediately distracted, she tried to fight the instinct playfully, but ended up exposing her jugular to him anyway.


	7. Intergalactic

_Author's note: I have introduced a planet that is of my own creation in this chapter, which I claim rights to._

_I also apologize for the wait that it took to get this chapter published. I will be moving tomorrow, and that means there will probably be another little gap of a few days in between chapters. Since I won't have internet for a few days, I'd like to ask my readers:_

_Who wants a little Sess x Rin lemon? Leave your response in my reviews!_

* * *

Blades sung as Bakusaiga clashed with Tessaiga. The muddy clearing that the family stood in sounded like a battlefield to Kagome and Rin, who were both sitting on cut tree stumps. Rin was used to the play fighting, though in the last fifty years, it had Sesshomaru fighting his own children with a steel bokken. This time, it was the siblings attempting to put one another on the defense with the bokkens, while Sesshomaru and Inuyasha enjoyed their chance to use their own swords. As always, the brothers were evenly matched; neither on the defense, both coming to a complete draw before backing off and starting again. Inuyasha's tactic had changed, from the explosive, hot-headed boy that Kagome remembered to a quiet, measured adult. He was still smaller than Sesshomaru, though, and occasionally had to throw all of his weight into the blade to keep it from slipping.

Kagome watched Inuyasha's muscle ripple under his skin as he brought the blade up into the air to block Sesshomaru's swing. Just as they connected, the clouds overhead began to rumble again, adding to the sound that was already echoing around the clearing in the woods. Inuyasha broke away as it began to rain again, huffing and stalking quickly towards where Kagome and Rin were sitting. As a droplet of rain hit his ear, he shook his head slightly. He was wearing black jeans, black hiking boots, and a grey t-shirt that hugged his muscles in the most delicious way, which made Kagome's gaze that much more intense. He was completely covered in sweat, and now that he would start cooling down, he would need the parka that waited for him in Kagome's lap. She smiled as he sat down next to him, sheathing the Tessaiga and setting it across his lap as he panted, trying to catch his breath. Just as Kagome reached her hand out to touch his forearm, the entire sky lit up with a loud, resounding crack. Everyone looked up, expecting to see a bolt of lightning hit a nearby tree.

Darkness, and the sensation of suffocation. The world around Kagome vanished.

* * *

A woman with bright red hair, wearing a tight, white suit made from a leathery material was sitting outside of a small, circular house at the base of a tree, on a small tree stump, waiting. As she waited, she filed her nails with a large crystal that was usually used to sharpen a scimitar with an exaggerated curve that hung on her hip. She seemed to be waiting for some sort of signal.

Both the sun and the moon hung in an almost navy blue sky above the tree tops. The moon was, of course, a waxing crescent - or she would not be waiting. What she waited for could only occur on a waxing crescent. Just as the woman stopped filing her nails and put the crystal in her long-sleeved leathery top, both planets suddenly vibrated, making a twanging sound. The woman got up from her tree stump, happily clapping her hands together. She disappeared with a _pop_.

* * *

_Author's note: Illead is pronounced "ill - eed." Ill as in illness, ead as in lead, when used in the context "I will lead."_

Kagome's eyes drifted open, unveiling the trees above her. She hurt like hell, feeling as though she'd been hit by a truck at the very least. She knew that Inuyasha was next to her to her right, and that they'd landed in about the same position; her instinct now automatically located his heart. It took her a few minutes to realize that they were not in the same place that they had been when the world had gone dark, but the forest around her looked close enough. She figured Sesshomaru and Ishi had simply moved them. Kagome started to sit up and look for them, noting just how badly she hurt. She opened her mouth to ask them, but realized with a sinking feeling that they were alone.

_Pop._

Kagome's eyes darted up, in the direction that she'd heard a sound like a twig breaking, expecting something to fall on her head. Instead, what she saw made her _wish_ that something were about to fall on her head.

A woman with long, flowing tendrils of red hair - as long as Sesshomaru's, but worn differently - was looking down at them from about a hundred feet above, perched on a tree branch. The woman leapt down a few branches, crouching down on a thick one, apparently trying to get a better look. She was wearing a tight-fitting white suit with long sleeves, and had a brown belt strung around her waist, which a curved sword hung, coated with a green sheath that looked to have scales, like alligator skin. Around her torso was a strap that held a quiver of arrows with a bow presumably strapped onto it, because its arch was visible, hanging beside the quiver.

The more Kagome saw, the more she thought that this woman was _definitely_ part of the Lore, and although she'd been brushed up briefly on the creatures that existed in it a few times, she couldn't place this woman. She had pointed ears like Sesshomaru, but something on her left cheekbone was brighter than the rest of her pristinely white skin. Kagome glanced down at Inuyasha nervously, noting that it was chilly here. She picked his parka up from the ground next to her and covered his torso as the unfamiliar person above continued to drop ever lower.

She finally dropped onto the ground, looking surprised to see them. Kagome was intrigued with the woman's inhuman features and way of moving, almost like a cat. She straightened up, looking at Kagome with a concerned expression.

"Where are you from?" She asked in a musical voice, using a different language that Kagome did not know how to speak, but understood somewhere, deep in the recesses of her soul. Hearing it seemed to wake part of her up. It was a pleasant feeling in the center of her chest, like a sleeping creature that stirred for the first time in a very, very long time.

"Japan, but I have to speak English," Kagome said with an obvious accent.

The woman's eyes were a beautiful amber colour, but they were surrounded by a twisted, confused expression. Kagome figured that she was just as surprised to see them as she was to see her.

"Earth, then," the woman said in perfect American English. Kagome's chest tightened uncomfortably. They had to still be on _Earth_, to think that they weren't was _blasphemy_ -

The woman pointed down at Inuyasha. "He isn't with you, is he?" she asked, and through Kagome's newborn confusion, the part of her that had just woken up noted that this was the reason for the woman's concern.

"He - he is," Kagome said, moving to get closer to Inuyasha, and maybe get out of the awkward position she was in on the ground. Just as she looked away from the woman, her head was jerked back by the sound of her voice. She had reverted to the other language again. She used a word that meant that she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Kagome looked at her with worry. She was just about to open her mouth to ask where they were when the woman took a deep breath, gently raking her neck with her nails.

"What race are you?" the woman asked.

"I'm human, but he's -"

"There's no way you're human," the woman laughed. "Your ears are far too pointed to be human. Humans have round ears."

Kagome was getting annoyed. She's just been interrupted on something concerning _her mate_, and _then_ she'd been told that she wasn't human by a complete stranger, when she knew _damn well_ that her ears were just as perfectly rounded as anyone else's ears. Regardless of the annoyance, she put her hand up to her ear anyway, just to see what the hell she was talking about.

She felt like she'd been kicked in something deeper than the gut, but the part of her that had just woken up purred with content. Her ears weren't pointed, but it seemed as though they were moving in that direction.

The woman crouched down to her level, going down onto one knee and putting her hand on the ground. It looked out of place there; pristine white skin against the leaves and pine needles that sat over a layer of damp earth on the forest floor. She looked into Kagome's eyes with an honest, newly composed expression.

"My name is Illead, and I am your guide. You're in a place called the Twilight Zone of Other. We're located as close to the Northern magnetic pole as we can get without going into open water. It's quite cool here, and his clothing is wet," she said, looking down at Inuyasha. "We will go back to the place that I dwell for tonight. I will explain things further once you have recovered from your trip across the Milky Way."

"_Across the Milky Way?_" Kagome choked. The arm supporting her gave out and she fell onto her elbow, quickly looking at Inuyasha's face. His skin and hair were sooty, and his ears were probably cold, but Kagome couldn't do anything if they were _light years_ away from England -

"Across the Milky Way," Illead confirmed. "Can you walk?"

Kagome shakily got to her feet, nodding once she felt her legs stabilize. She realized that the air here was different. It was thick with some sort of energy that she couldn't place, but the awakened part of her revelled in it. However, there was more at hand than just figuring out what kind of place she was in when Inuyasha was still unconscious, and Kagome couldn't do anything to get him out of the cold.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, the tiny, elf-like woman called Illead pulled the parka off of him and tossed it at Kagome. Kagome caught it reflexively, trying not to get angry at the idea of another woman touching him. She worked methodically, though, and that made it easy for Kagome - until Illead picked him up and hoisted him over her shoulder. It looked comical, and Kagome almost wanted to laugh, but Illead walked just as lightly as she would if she didn't have a two hundred pound half-demon slung over her shoulder. Kagome grabbed the Tessaiga, which had fallen out of Inuyasha's unconscious grasp, and followed the stranger into the woods.

* * *

A rounded wooden house sat at the base of a wide Redwood tree on the South side of a small stream. As Kagome hopped across the rocks behind Illead, she was happy to see a creature that she recognized; a little gray horse was nosing the ground for anything edible only a few yards away from the front door of the little house. She hoped they had running water on this planet, and that the inside of that house was warm, because Kagome's hands were starting to turn a light shade of purple. The little elf raised her hand towards the horse as they approached the front door, and as if it were his cue, he followed her through the doorway. Kagome stared, dumbfounded, as she entered the home - only noting to close the door behind her because it was blissfully warm in here.

Most of the floor was one great slab of stone, only a quarter-section being mossy with a water bucket sitting on its floor for the little gray horse. At the center of the floor, there was the great tree it had been built around with a ribbon tied around it, from which different coloured crystals hung. The walls were wooden, but covered with tapestries in most places. A short staircase crawled against the wall, leading to the upper floor; and there was a fireplace whose chimney lead right out the wall above it.

But none of those things were nearly as strange as the cat.

Under the staircase, on a woolen cushion, a creature that looked exactly like a Russian Blue sat, staring at the visitors. Kagome wouldn't have found it frightening had it not been the size of a Mastiff. As Illead began climbing the stairs, the cat got up swiftly, silently following her before Kagome could.

The upstairs was split in two, and the landing was nothing more than a long hallway that ended with the great tree that stood in the center of the home. It was barren but for one door on either wall. Illead had just opened the door directly to the right and entered. Kagome followed her in, noting with a little too much relief that there was a fireplace and an oversized bathtub in the room. Inuyasha was on his back on a large, circular bed with no frame at all; it rested on the floor. Kagome looked at Illead, who was sitting on the floor next to the bed, stroking the giant grey cat. She was relaxed.

"This will be your room here," she said graciously. "It was built for your use, or anyone else that fate brings to Other. I must leave abruptly."

Kagome looked at her with alarm before she explained.

"Now that the Two have come through at last, I must seek counsel from my order," she explained, rising from her spot on the floor and walking to the door. It appeared to close itself after she left silently, leaving Kagome alone to nurse Inuyasha back to consciousness.


	8. Over the Hills and Far Away

_Author's note:_

_This is a short chapter in which many things take place. In the next few chapters, you will understand why it is written this way._

_I feel terrible about the fact that it's taken me this long to get this chapter to you guys. To make a long story short, the company that was supposed to hook my internet up told me that I didn't need to be home for the process when I did, and now it could be up to two weeks before I have fully functional, at-home internet. I'm currently using the unprotected broadband at the library to get this chapter up._

_Thank you so much for being so patient, and for reading my story. It means a lot to me._

* * *

It had taken Kagome about ten minutes to figure out that nothing she could do would rouse Inuyasha.

She was having a nervous breakdown of a different kind this time. Instead of curling up into a subdued ball, she was pacing the room faster than she could run. It made her literally dizzy, but she had no concern for dizziness. Dizziness was actually the _least_ strange thing that was happening to her at the moment. Everything in her spirit was haywire, and she completely lost her grip on her reality. She wanted vainly to throw herself out the window of the room, or to possibly stop moving all together and just throw herself on the floor and curl up in a ball. Strange energy was seeping into her, causing her to feel sick to her stomach and dead to what was happening around her at the same time. She didn't worry about Inuyasha because she couldn't handle it. In fact, she was on the brink of not being able to handle anything at all, ever again, because the strange feelings that were making her feel like an animal ready to bolt were also making her feel like this was the end. The very end of it all. And Kagome didn't care. Kagome didn't care about the woman in white, or about Inuyasha - Kagome didn't care about anything. She surged to the window at last, grabbing the very edge as she considered the fall to the ground, and whether or not it would kill her. Just as she got ready to throw herself over, two things happened at once that made her already erratic heart thump even harder.

Kagome noticed, even in her reverie, that both the sun and the moon both hung in the sky. The sun was a burning orange colour, smouldering very far away - which would explain how cold it was here - and the moon was light green. It didn't even really look like a moon - the only thing that gave it away was the fact that it was crescent shaped. It actually looked rather like Venus. As her expression became even more unhinged, she heard something move behind her.

Inuyasha snarled, throwing himself into an upright position, completely out of his mind. His nails were poised to tear things apart, and his eyes were red. Kagome immediately turned around faster than she would have thought possible, moving like a wraith. She snared the Tessaiga off the bed, grabbing his right hand and smacking the hilt of his sword into it. She payed no attention at all to the sharpened nails that had just lunged to her throat. She wasn't sure why she'd done any of these things.

"Kagome," Inuyasha rasped.

She sat next to him. He snatched her right hand, gripping it too hard. Through the nuclear explosion that was happening around her and in her mind, she recognized that he was about to hurt her. The fact didn't stir any particular emotions, but possibly made the explosion more powerful.

"Inuyasha?" Kagome asked. She was vaguely surprised that she remembered his name, and that she knew how to speak. No other words had formed in her mind since the tiny woman that called herself Illead - whom Kagome hoped was part of her imagination - had disappeared behind the wooden door. He looked like he couldn't respond to her, tremors wracking his body in a way she'd only seen once before.

"No," she said softly to herself. The Tessaiga was supposed to stop him from doing exactly what he was doing, and instead, it was just trembling in its saya.

He gripped her hand harder, and she cried out, not expecting the sheer amount of pain in her massive state of discord. Her bones snapped under his grip, and her body seized. She could tell that part of her frame - part of what kept her upright and functioning - had just been compromised.

The sound of her pain broke through the haze of the power that Inuyasha felt coursing through him, touching his humanity.

His eyes went gold. He was staring into the space across from them, where the oversized bathing basin was located. It was a moment before he recognized the cries as Kagome's, and another before he realized that he had her mangled hand in his vice grip. Once he did, he turned to her, realizing that the expression on her face was one that tried to silently express excruciating pain. He dropped her hand at once, his expression horrified.

* * *

Illead jogged through the massive hallways of the Dark Court, making her way to the great green door at the very end of the South Wing. She knocked gently with the knuckles of her index and middle fingers, waiting for a response.

Instead of a voice command, a man much taller than her 5'1 opened the door. He had grey hair that made its way to his shoulders, and he wore a black robe. His eyes were exactly the same colour and shape as Illead's.

Illead went down on one knee, bowing her head.

"Father," she said in her native tongue.

"Illead," the man said in a soft, scratchy voice. "Come in."

Illead walked to the very center of the room, across from her father's desk. She stood at attention as he strode towards it, taking a comfortable seat in a throne-like chair behind it.

"It has been nearly a decade, Illead. What brings you to the Dark?"

Illead backed up from the desk a little bit more so that she could be sure he saw her. She bowed again, pulling the sword out of her belt and resting it across her thigh.

"I have been employed again, Father. But there is an irregularity," she stated.

"Irregularity with employment for a Guide?" he asked, picking up a clay cup from his desk and taking a sip of a sulfur-smelling liquid.

"There are two, Father. Two came in together. They are from Earth, and neither of them are human," Illead said, still keeping her head bowed. The sword across her thigh rattled a little bit in its green scaled sheath as the hand that held it shook.

The aged man behind the desk dropped his cup, which shattered on the floor next to him, staining the room with the scent of sulfur.

* * *

Inuyasha wanted to pull her into his arms and throw himself away from her at the same time. He didn't know if he could trust himself wherever they were, so he went with the latter. Kagome fell onto her knees, gripping her hand and trying not to cry.

As he backed away, Kagome sobbed roughly, causing her body to shake.

"No - come back here!" she said, almost angry. Inuyasha hoped she _was_ angry, hoped she would attack him when he obeyed, because he would never _not_ obey such a command. He kneeled down on the floor next to her, tears welling in his eyes just as he saw how severely he had injured her. He knew it would be knitting itself together wrong, so he reached out to it.

"I'm so sorry, Kagome," he rasped, picking her hand up by the wrist. She squeaked at the pain, but did not fight him. Tears spilled onto his cheeks and he smoothed the breakage out, causing Kagome to cry again out as he did.

* * *

A man clad in black strode swiftly in the direction of Aero's chamber. His clothing was a little bit like Illead's; tightly fitting, with boots that had no heel. He had hair that appeared almost-black, and two silver, star-shaped amulets hung from his wrist. He pushed the green door open, paying no attention as it swung closed loudly behind him. He took a stance beside Aero's desk; awaiting the task that would be appointed, all but ignoring the little woman in white.

"Guard them," Aero said quickly. He looked to Irgon, whom he'd called to help Illead. "Get those talismans to them as soon as possible, they're probably being driven out of their minds. Irgon, say nothing to anyone. Assist my daughter. Now, go!" he said, rising from his throne-like chair and wading across the room. He pulled his great green door open so that his guests could exit before him. They left without a word, walking swiftly out of the South Wing.

As soon as they entered the main hall of Dark Court, they broke into a sprint, the man called Irgon morphing into a lion as he ran. His coat was as the same colour as his hair, with the golden eyes that so many here had. Once they burst through the giant front doors of the Court, the lion and the woman looked up at the complete half-moon that hung lowly in the sky before taking off again.

* * *

Inuyasha held her as closely as he could, keeping the top of her head pressed against his cheek. He could tell that the markings on either side of his face were still there, and he understood that the reason for this was the forest. He seemed to sit in a cocoon with Kagome, not exactly seeing or feeling anything outside of what was going on in his mind. He sensed that anything outside would be dangerous, and kept himself from venturing there. More than once, he wanted to ask Kagome exactly where _there_ was, but he didn't have the heart to wake her up if she had fallen asleep. Not after what he'd done to her. Instead, he lay unmoving for hours, his mind going around in circles. He seemed to know that those circles were the only familiar, comforting thing that he would encounter for a while, and that he should enjoy what time he had with them.

He worried about his family. The last time he'd gone off without notice was when he left almost fifty years prior, to travel until he could go and look for Kagome. He remembered Ishi - the oldest of their children - coming to find him in different places, sending word about how everyone was doing, and asking for the same in turn. He'd known Rin had been calmly concerned after he'd left, as motherly as she'd become - and almost thirty years into the wait, she'd sent Kirara to keep him on his toes with a responsibility, even though they all knew damn well that Kirara could take care of herself.

The room around him held no familiar scents, aside from a cat. That was how he'd determined that wherever _there_ was, Sesshomaru had not arranged for them to stay here to recover from being struck by lightning. He couldn't feel the aura of anyone familiar at all here. He was fairly sure that the last being to accompany them in this room wasn't human, but he couldn't pinpoint the scent as any creature he knew to be part of the Lore. It smelled very faintly of sulfur; as though the very being itself contained sulfur. Just as he began the circle again to try and place more pieces into the puzzle, the sound of a door opening and closing, accompanied by two sets of bipedal footsteps echoed from below them. He reflexively took his hand away from Kagome's back and reached for the Tessaiga, which was compressed in between them, its tsuba digging into his muscle. Kagome tensed and opened her eyes.

The door behind Inuyasha gently creaked open, and a little woman walked almost silently across the room. She went to the foot of the bed, directly facing them, and spoke softly in a language Inuyasha did not know how to speak, but understood with his spirit.

"I have things for you to help your transition," she said in a velvety voice. Inuyasha was grateful that she spoke so quietly with Kagome around, to avoid startling her. "I will return in a few hours, because we must travel."

With that, the little woman walked forward, setting something on the mattress' foot, and turned to leave, shutting the door silently behind her. Inuyasha wrinkled his nose in disgust. _She_ was the one that smelled like sulfur.

* * *

Rin sat at the kitchen table, staring at the bottle of Chivas Regal, holding onto the glass that she'd been sipping out of for the last two hours. She rarely ever drank, and almost _never_ drank the Chivas unless she was having a _very_ bad day.

And today was a _very_ bad day.

Sesshomaru was staring at his reflection in his glass of Scotch. He occasionally spun the cup around in place, watching his expression distort as the notches in the glass reflected his face. At the end of the table, a knowing Kirara sat with her head on her paws.

"Do you think they're dead?" Rin asked. She did not edit her question, or spare using words that would sting. She was too old for that, and so was Sesshomaru. She looked up to gauge his reaction.

He picked up his glass, sitting more erect in his seat. He did not drink, however. He merely watched as he continued to spin the glass, intent with the little details. There was no answer for a minute, and a heavy sensation settled in Rin's stomach. She did not want to have lost part of their family.

"No," he said finally. "That lightning smelled like roses. That's not a natural occurrence. Those two have been marked by fate for strange things to happen to them. This one has just been particularly… otherworldly."

"Why do you use the word 'otherworldly,' Sesshomaru-sama?"

He half-smiled briefly at the use of his name formally.

"Because I do not feel them here. I do not feel them anywhere near this Earth."

The heavy sensation in Rin's stomach became heavier, and she lowered her eyes to the table. It didn't seem to matter whether they had died or not, because if they had gone to a place which no one here could reach them, they had already been lost. She closed her eyes as tears welled in them, allowing them to seep from under her lids. She felt Sesshomaru's gaze move to her face, and could tell that he was resisting the need to comfort her. Instead, words uttered softly in his deep voice reached her ears, which quelled the burning in her heart.

"You must let them do it on their own, Rin. We cannot go to their aid. If they are meant to come back, we will see them again."

Rin picked up her glass and downed the rest of the shot that had sat at the bottom. She revelled in the sensation of swallowing poison, setting the glass down and putting her head down on the table top. She could tell that Sesshomaru finally couldn't take it anymore, and heard him rise swiftly from his seat. The next thing she felt was the heaviness as the alcohol took effect, making it all worse instead of better, as she'd known it would do - and Sesshomaru's arms were around her. He was making his way up the kitchen staircase with her in his arms, bridal-style, as she simply lost coherent thought. Her eyes slid out of focus, and at that moment, her brain forgot, even if her spirit remembered.


End file.
